AN ECCENTRIC NATURALIST. l6/ 



in our admiration of his great achievements. Le Sueur is 

 remembered as the 'first to explore the ichthyology of 

 the great American lakes. Laboring with these, and 

 greatest of them all in respect to the extent and range 

 of his accomplishments, is one whose name has been 

 nearly forgotten, and who is oftenest mentioned in the 

 field of his best labors with pity or contempt." * 



It is doubtless true that while, as Professor 

 Agassiz has said, Rafinesque " was a better man 

 than he appeared," and while he was undoubtedly 

 a man of great learning and of greater energy, his 

 work does not deserve a high place in the records 

 of science. And his failure seems due to two 

 things : first, his lack of attention to details, a 

 defect which has vitiated all of his work; and, 

 second, his versatility, which led him to attempt 

 work in every field of learning. As to this, he 

 says himself: 



" It is a positive fact that in knowledge I have been a 

 botanist, naturalist, geologist, geographer, historian, poet, 

 philosopher, philologist, economist, philanthropist. By 

 profession a traveller, merchant, manufacturer, brewer, 

 collector, improver, teacher, surveyor, draughtsman, archi- 

 tect, engineer, pulmist, author, editor, bookseller, libra- 

 rian, secretary, and I hardly know what I may not 

 become as yet, since, whenever I apply myself to any- 

 thing which I like, I never fail to succeed, if depending 

 on myself alone, unless impeded or prevented by the lack 

 of means, or the hostility of the foes of mankind." 



But a traveller Rafinesque chiefly considered 

 himself; and to him all his pursuits, scientific, lin- 

 guistic, historical, were but episodes in a life of 



1 American Naturalist, 1876. 



